Editor’s note: Welcome a new face to a changing Lewisville-Flower Mound

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Staff photo by ROSE BACA/neighborsgo

Members of the Flower Mound Walking Women group (from left) Susan Hayes, Kathie Greenwood and Shirley Morgan complete a yoga exercise in Glenwick Park in Flower Mound. The surrounding area was rated the the healthiest neighborhood in the Flower Mound and Lewisville area.

It’s only natural to assume the things closest to you will change because of your actions. That’s why it’s comforting to come home after a long trip and see that everything remains as you left it — even that expired carton of milk in the fridge. On a trip back to my hometown last weekend, I got a dose of what it’s like to see something I love change — which hadn’t for so long — in my absence.

On a trip back to my hometown last weekend, I got a dose of what it’s like to see something I love change — which hadn’t for so long — in my absence.

Now, I’ll forgive you if you don’t hold the same reverence for your paper as I do for my hometown, but I’ll be a big part of the changes taking place in your Lewisville-Flower Mound section. Gloria Hernandez and I will take over editing duties in the coming weeks, and we look forward to hearing from and working with all of you.

To give a brief synopsis of myself: I hail from the small town of Buchanan, Mich., and graduated with a degree in journalism and political science from Northwestern University in June 2011. I started at neighborsgo in April, helping to edit the Allen-Frisco-McKinney section, but also reporting on communities across the Dallas area.

I also have a penchant for ice hockey and ice cream, which I’ll go ahead and credit to my chilly Midwestern upbringing.

As I gear up to cover your cities, my colleague, Nanette Light, wrote this week’s cover story on a Flower Mound neighborhood that’s the healthiest in the coverage area, according to a study by The Dallas Morning News. It’s thanks, in part, to recent developments in the city’s trail and parks system.

Longtime residents of southern Denton County and the rest of the Dallas-Fort Worth area must be accustomed to seeing their hometowns change. I’m not.

Buchanan, where I spent my entire childhood and watched myself change, stagnated. The town of roughly 4,500 people often lost more than it gained (although that new McDonald’s was pretty sweet).

Before going home last weekend, I hadn’t been back since New Year’s — the longest I’d ever been away from Buchanan. All the newness since I moved away from home two years ago hit me: the new senior center by my house, the new general stores, the two new pizza places.

The memory and the reality of my hometown didn’t match. It’s a humbling (and unsettling) reminder of how the world I know and love keeps spinning without me.

So, DFW natives, I give you kudos for handling change so well. And I hope you continue to embrace it — at least as far as this change goes.

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